Los Angeles sunset
A world series for the record book
A World Series that starts like this will be one to follow to the end. Game 1 of the Yankees and Dodgers match up, their first in 43 years, started slowly.
For my first game at Dodger Stadium in Chavez Ravine, my uncle Max, a doctor in Phoenix, got us seats in the left field bleachers about as far away from home base as possible. I don’t recall who we played or who won. It was a night game and what I recall are the colors. The field was the greenest place I’d ever seen, the dirt was rust red and the stadium was lit like a supernova must be.
We lived in Orange County, which is south of LA. When we got on the 101 freeway to come home, Max relied on my advice as the next oldest male in the car for which way to go and we were halfway to Santa Barbara before he figured we’d better turn around.
The Dodgers scored first with a homer by Kiki Hernandez in the fifth and it was 1- 0 until Giancarlo Stanton hit a 412 foot two-run homer in the sixth inning to make the score 2-1, Yankees. Both pitchers were sitting the batters down with little trouble. In the eighth inning Shohei Ohtani hit a double off the right field wall that should have been a single but his legs and a flubbed catch at second allowed him to reach third base. Mookie Betts’s long hit to right field allowed Ohtani to score, and the game was tied 2-2 at the end of the 9th Inning.
Rising from behind centerfield with what must have been a drone mounted camera, the sunset beyond downtown LA glowed with a deep blue, purple and orange sky like a Maxfield Parrish painting.
At the top of the 10th, Jazz Chisolm Jr. scored from third after swiping two bases to get there, putting the Yankees ahead 3-2.
When the Dodgers came up in the bottom of the 10th, Gavin Lux walked and then reached second on Tommy Edman’s infield single. With two men on base, Manager Aaron Boone called in his best reliever Nestor Cortes to try to save the day. Ohtani came up and flied out to left fielder Alex Verdugo, who caught the ball in foul territory and fell over the short wall into the stands allowing the runners on first and second to advance. Rather than take another chance with Betts coming up, the Yankees thought it best to intentionally walk him and load the bases. But they jumped from the frying pan into the fire when Freddie Freeman came up. He managed a triple earlier in the game and had more to give when he hit Cortes’s first pitch, a fastball down the middle, deep into the right field stands.
It was the first walk off grand slam in World Series history, and you could measure the roar of the fans on the Richter Scale.
The second game wasn’t as exciting as the first. Entertainer Ice Cube opened the second game. He’s an LA based rapper who put that music on the charts and the stadium was rockin. I’m no fan of rap but if the question is, can you dance to it, the answer is hellyeah!
The Dodgers’ second Japanese superstar, Yoshino-bu Yamamoto, started the game allowing only one hit in 6 ½ innings. Freeman (again), Edman and Teoscar Hernandez homered. Ohtani who hit 54 homeruns and stole 59 bases during the regular season partially dislocated his shoulder trying to steal second base. The other big story is the Yankees’ Aaron Judge, who hit 58 homers in the regular season, went 0-4 with three strikeouts in the second game and is struggling mightily – all 6’7” of him – with one hit in nine at bats so far.
The World Series is off to a good start for Dodgers fans. The teams travel to New York for game three Monday. Will Ohtani come back from injury? Will Judge’s bat find the baseball? And will Freddie Freeman keep homering? Stay tuned.